F1 News

Ferrari team boss Vasseur on bouncing in 2024

Ferrari faces challenge: 'Problem if that's not under control'

12 August at 08:00
  • Nicole Mulder

Ferrari saw an old problem return in recent Formula 1 races: the cars of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz are again suffering from bouncing more frequently. Leclerc already indicated that this problem is probably due to updates and that it is a priority to fix it, given its major impact on the team's performance. Team boss Fred Vasseur acknowledges the problem but also states that it is extremely difficult to deal with.

Ferrari must settle bouncing

Ferrari's gap with Red Bull Racing is many times smaller at the moment than at the same point last year. Yet the Italian F1 team has been struggling with the recurring problem of a bouncing car again lately and, according to Vasseur, it listens very closely when the problem occurs and how to solve it.

"The issue is when bouncing is not under control. It's quite impossible to simulate the bouncing because you can see that from session to session when the wind change the direction or whatever, the bouncing can appear or disappear. It's really marginal," the Ferrari team boss explained in front of GPblog.

"We are already on the edge of this. You can't simulate this in the into the wind tunnel. We have some metrics to imagine if we'll be in a better shape or not, but at the end of the day, we are also pushed by the delta of performance that we could gain," he continued. "We need to figure out how to simulate this kind of non-stable situation."

This article has been written in collaboration with Matt Gretton